07/28/2026
Does Endurance Training Increase Health Risk?
No.
There have been many claims made against cardio and endurance training as a reason to not to do it. Lately, there have been some who suggest it’s actually unhealthy for us.
Is it? Absolutely not.
Humans are the greatest endurance athletes on the planet. In fact, endurance running is thought to have driven our evolution.
Bramble & Lieberman 2004 research states:
“The fossil evidence…suggests that endurance running is a derived capability of the genus Homo…and may have been instrumental in the evolution of the human body form”
Adaptations include:
Eccrine Sweat Glands
Loss of Body Hair.
Bipedal Foot Structure
Enormous Gluteus Maximus
Nuchal Ligament
Achilles Tendon (Bramble & Lieberman, 2004)
It’s hard to suggest that endurance training is bad for us when our bodies evolved for it.
There’s also concern about increased arterial fibrillation (AF). This is seen but only in athletes who perform a large volume of high endurance training.
In other words, it’s not seen by people doing 10Ks, half marathons or a single marathon a year.
A large study actually examined this and found while it does occur, it doesn’t seem to have a detrimental effect in athletes.
"However, the studies analyzed here...do not support that such type of exercise is overall harmful to the human heart.”
“Veteran athletes with arrhythmias have higher heart rate variability, which has a cardio protective effect." (Garatachea et al., 2014)
And last…Endurance athletes live longer.
A Meta-Analysis of 165,000 Former Athletes determined:
"Endurance and team sport athlete’s all-cause and CVD mortality was significantly lower than the general population" (Runacres et al., 2021)
The problem comes when an individual fixates on a single mechanism instead of the overall picture.
And the overall picture says endurance exercise supports a longer life.
Bramble, D., Lieberman, D. Endurance running and the evolution of Homo. Nature 432, 345–352 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03052
Garatachea et al. (2014). Elite athletes live longer than the general population: a meta-analysis. Mayo Clinic proceedings, 89(9), 1195–1200. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2014.06.004
Runacres, et al(2021). Health Consequences of an Elite Sporting Career: Long-Term Detriment or Long-Term Gain? A Meta-Analysis of 165,000 Former Athletes. Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 51(2), 289–301. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-020-01379-5